Aetatis
by T. Alana M
Summary: When Hashirama wakes up as a child again, he vows to protect his family and form a truce with the Uchiha sooner. When Madara wakes up in the same situation with several changes, he wonders why the gods hate him and realizes he'd be better off if no one answered that. (fem!madara)
1. Eighty years and change

_Aetatis_

 _-at the age of-_

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 **Chapter one, Eighty Years and Change**

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 _Kaguya screamed as she was sealed up, her will clinging to her tightly. It was unable to escape as it had done millennia ago._

 _This was unacceptable._ This was unacceptable _. She'd been free, and now she was to be sealed again, by the two who reminded her of those traitorous children she should never have bore into the world._

 _There was a flicker of something vaguely familiar at the edge of her senses, a soul recently dead. Her eyes widened as she recognized the one who'd briefly acted as her vessel, and her shadowy will whispered the name, and Kaguya smiled. With her diminishing power, she took hold of the fleeting soul, subduing its struggles._

 _Perhaps she could use her vessel a second time._

 _She molded the soul, and flung it into a time where it could free her again._

* * *

Tajima Uchiha woke up to the panicked cries of the midwives. Crashes and thuds marked pandemonium, and above it all, a baby's wail. He would have gone back to sleep - this was his fourth child, his wife should know how to handle birthing at this point - but closer attention to the screams had him throwing the covers off and sprinting to the birthing room.

 _Youkai._ What child had his wife brought forth?

By the time he arrived, the noise had calmed down. The midwives, kneeling on either side of his wife, looked at him, white with fear - or shock - but silent. He laid eyes on his tired wife next, and made his way over to her and the bundle in her arms.

He looked down and paled. The child had bone-white hair, and its eyes were screwed shut with tears. A thin, puckered line slashed vertically across its forehead, looking almost like a third eyelid.

"What happened?" he demanded. His wife looked up at him, face gaunt and tired.

"I don't know," the admission startled him more than he would admit, as the woman always seemed to have an answer to everything. Sighing, she pushed the child into his arms - which was also out of character, as he'd previously waited until his sons were able to wield weapons before interacting with them.

"Your daughter," his wife pronounced, sounding anything but happy. "Madara Uchiha."

* * *

 _Konoha looked warped from Hashirama's position far above it, but he smiled when he saw the new generation file out of the school he'd built. The loudest child with bright hair was surely Minato's grandson, and Hashirama looked towards the Hokage mountain to see the face of his own grandchild etched in stone._

 _He turned to the Sage of Six Paths, floating next to him. "You're sending me back in time? I think things have worked out quite well."_

 _Hagaromo was silent, worry clouding his ancient features. At last, he said, "There are different times. Different universes. It is one of these that I am sending you to, at a time you would be familiar with."_

 _The scene shifted, and the sound of battle filled the air. Hashirama's face fell when he saw the Senju and Uchiha symbols emblazoned on armor and weapons. Even after all these years, he remembered the battlefield with perfect clarity, could almost smell the stench of blood in the air._

 _"Any other time," he pleaded, but the Sage shook his head and looked at him with something akin to sympathy. "What am I to do? End the war sooner?"_

 _"If you wish," the Sage said. "But that is not a concern. Humans will always have conflict," he adds at Hashirama's appalled look. "There is something tainted in this era. It could be nothing, but it could also mean chaos."_

 _"So you're sending me to that miserable era on a hunch?" Hashirama demanded._

 _"No," the Sage said sharply. "Do not trivialize this. I ignored the existence of my mother's will before, believing it was too weak to cause harm, and look what it managed to do."_

 _The battlefield shifted into Kaguya's image, suspended in the air above the trapped forms of hundreds of dying ninja._

 _Hashirama's lips thinned. "But you don't know what it is I'm meant to stop?"_

 _"No. Once you leave this place, you will not even remember this conversation," Hashirama opened his mouth to protest, but the Sage continued, "It is the strength and experience you have now that you shall need if the taint causes something of this magnitude."_

 _He slumped, red armored plates clinking. "I don't have a choice, do I?"_

 _"No." The Sage said flatly, and Hashirama closed his eyes._

* * *

When Hashirama Senju woke and realized he was twelve years old again, he knew what he had to do, even if he had no idea how he'd ended up there or if it was all a genjutsu. He gathered a miniature Tobirama and Itama in his arms, despite his brothers' many protests, and told them very calmly that he would protect them all, and he wouldn't let anything happen to them and they would all live in the nice village he'd made together with the enemy clan who had just burned their other brother to crisp the other day, which he wouldn't let happen to them, by the way.

Itama had stared at him with wide, watery eyes at the mention of Kawarama and Tobirama had whacked him on the head and told him to stop being so weird in the middle of the night when everyone just wanted peace.

Then Tobirama had rolled over and gone back to sleep, while Hashirama hugged Itama and giggled a little maniacally, promising that this time was going to be perfect and there was no way he would be killed by several adult Uchiha who shouldn't have been ganging up on a little kid in the first place.

Several weeks later, Hashirama was black and blue from defying his father one too many times, and Tobirama was shaking his head.

"I swear, it's like you woke up stupider one day," his little brother said in disgust, although his concern was poorly masked. He scowled and swatted Hashirama's hand away when he reached over to ruffle his hair.

"Father's obstinate. We need a truce, so we can have peace and children can stop dying."

"And how are you going to manage that?"

"I'm going to make a truce with the Uchiha," he said determinedly. Tobirama looked doubtful, but resigned.

"Fine, just be more subtle about it, will you?"

Hashirama laughed sheepishly.

He supposed declaring peace at a war meeting he'd barged in on may not have been the best way to deal with things.

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 **Ch 1, end.**

 **RnR**


	2. Ages six, twelve, and ten

**Special thanks to all those who favorited, followed, or reviewed.**

 **(AN: Due to a mix up, the first scene of this chapter was incorporated into the last one. It's now been deleted from the first chapter.)**

* * *

Tajima woke at the presence of someone outside his room. Shouldering a kama, he crept to the door and opened it just enough to see through. There was a figure on the porch, back to him, dark head tilted toward the sky. Tajima sighed upon recognizing his daughter.

He slid open the door completely and joined her, sitting heavily on the porch.

"What are you looking at?"

She glanced at him, eyes Sharingan red and spinning. A few months ago, the sight would have jarred him.

"The moon," she said, and turned back towards it.

Tajima leaned back and looked at his daughter, wondering. At six years old, she was still tiny, but he could see the calluses on her small hands and the firm muscles building under baby fat. Women generally became healers in the Clan, with only minor training to defend themselves with. But none of the women had wanted to train the devil child, and his wife was too busy with the new baby - no, not a baby, Izuna should be three or four by now.

His daughter's dark hair spilled over her shoulders and down her back in messy spikes, and that was about the only feature he could recognize that came from him. He couldn't see any of his or his wife's features in the girl. She had generic Uchiha looks - pale skin, dark hair, coal-black eyes that bled into red, but other than that, he couldn't spot anything familiar in her wide eyes and delicate features.

Tajima frowned, and remembered thinking she would be a sickly child considering the looks she'd been born with, but that hadn't been the case. She'd grown healthy and much more aware than his other children. Within months after her birth, Madara's hair had grown in thick and black - his wife had shorn off the white edges - over the scarring he'd once thought to resemble a third eyelid. Perhaps it was gone by now. He'd never asked.

She didn't look like a devil child anymore, but her manner was still unsettling. The child had been too quiet as a baby, never crying, and staring up at the moon when it was full. He remembered his wife, at her wit's end, telling him hysterically that Madara's first word had been _Kaguya_ of all things.

A child touched by the gods, he'd thought fleetingly. But there was a vicious glint in his daughter's eyes sometimes that made him revise that opinion.

Her growth hadn't lessened her oddness. At times, she was pliant as a doll, letting her caretakers dress her in kimonos and absorbing etiquette lessons blandly. But every so often, her dazed stare would sharpen and she'd trudge outside, shed the kimono for male clothing - usually her brother's - and train viciously until her hands were raw and bleeding and she'd surpassed trainees twice her age.

And then she'd go back inside and sit at the tea table like nothing had happened.

Her latest outburst, as he had come to call them, had somehow ended in Madara awakening the sharingan. He remembered staring at his eldest in disbelief when he'd announced that his _five year old sister_ now had a Sharingan. And once she had activated it, there was no persuading her to turn it off. So now Tajima's five year old was six, and had the same number of _tomoe_ spinning in her irises.

He realized that he paid more attention to his daughter than his other children, and so had they. His sons weren't the envious sort though, and he'd told them, when they'd complained once, that if they wanted attention they should be as strong as their odd brat of a sister was.

That was the last conversation he'd had with his second son before he'd died in the battlefield, less than a week ago. It was one he regretted, but his duties as Clan Head meant that he was not able to grieve too long. More practical problems required his attention - his men were holding their own against the Senju, but they were thinning out. He needed _more_ if the Uchiha were to win the war.

He looked at his daughter again. Perhaps...

 _No. Not yet. But eventually,_ he promised himself _._

* * *

Hashirama leaned against his tenth attempt at Mokuton, a thin sapling sprouting brown leaves.

Time travel wasn't something that Hashirama had given much thought to. It seemed impossible, and taking hypothetical situations and turning them into reality had been more Tobirama's forte than his. For his part, he had simply tried to live his life with as few regrets as possible (and still ended up with many).

Waking up in the past after being, according to Saru, eighty years dead was an entirely unexpected miracle. It wouldn't be a particularly easy time to live in, but he could change things for the better. There were so many things he could do. End the war with peace sooner, no matter how many beatings his father doled out when he brought up the subject. He could protect Itama this time, even if it was too late for Kawarama and their mother. He could make sure Izuna lived and Tobirama never tattled on him and Madara this time around.

Which. Which he could do _right then._

If he could get to Madara, and make sure that their Clans never found out until they were both in positions to make an alliance happen, then perhaps this time -

Hashirama bolted up in excitement and scanned his surroundings, sensing for chakra. There was no one near, and Tobirama was with their father, so that meant training.

He turned and ran to the river, a grin spreading across his face.

* * *

Tobirama bit back a cry as his back smashed into the wooden poles that were normally used as target practice.

He pushed himself to his knees on shaky arms, spat out the blood pooling in his mouth. That was the twenty-third loss. A shadow fell over him, but he refused to look up in favor of cradling his possibly-cracked ribs.

"Get up," Butsuma said, voice hard with disapproval. "How do you expect to face the enemy if you can't handle this much?"

Tobirama held back a retort and grabbed the pole, slowly pulling himself up. He met his father's glare evenly, trying not to quail, and wiped blood from the corner of his mouth. He glanced at the back of his hand, now smeared with red. There was more than he'd expected.

Butsuma stood with deceptive casualness, but his narrowed eyes told a different story.

Butsuma was used to training his brother who, no matter how much he whined or came up with odd notions, was a powerhouse and a natural fighter. But recently, Hashirama had grown bolder, more reckless, and their careful relationship had soured. So Butsuma had turned to Tobirama, expecting him to have his brother's power, albeit with the same reticence that had saved Tobirama and his brothers from many beatings.

He hadn't measured up.

He barely managed to dodge the shuriken that had been aimed at his temple. The blade scratched his skin, and Tobirama held back a curse as blood flowed down the side of his face.

"Focus!" Butsuma snapped. "Useless brat." His eyes were laced with barely concealed disgust. In those eyes, Tobirama was little more than a dissatisfying tool. (Itama and Kawarama were even less. Had the man even grieved when his youngest had died?)

Tobirama fought back tears.

He wasn't weak, he _wasn't_ , but he didn't have Hashirama's monstrous strength. Tobirama's strengths lay in creativity and strategy, thinking so far outside the box that he could improve age-old jutsu used by their ancestors. Useful traits, but none that his father cared about. The only thing of worth in Butsuma's eyes was how high one's chakra level was. With one powerhouse son that fulfilled and surpassed those expectations, his other children would never be able to measure up, were little more than fodder.

And Tobirama couldn't help but hate his brother for that, a little.

* * *

Life seemed hazy to Madara, a blur of colors and indistinct voices. The only thing clear and certain, the only thing that mattered, was the glowing light of the moon.

It was a barren, rocky waste.

Some of the darker blurs were more familiar than others, what Madara

The days slipped by like water through (her? no. ) fingers. Madara let them.

There were flashes. Images. Memory? A river and a boy. Dragons made of wood. Chakra with a fox's form. And the clearest image; the moon and a woman with a glowing red eye.

Rarer images - two children, so talented and so ungrateful, a chaotic world that needed peace.

What was vaguely recognized as _lifenowpresent_ came in flashes as well. Attentive father - although the not-memories told Madara that wasn't right - who stayed up to watch the moon together. A mother who wanted nothing to do with children - _no not children just_ \- . Three older brothers, two now - the youngest doting, eldest distant, middle curious-no,not anymore. A younger brother, too young to have a distinct personality - _no, precious younger brother, I love him, dead younger brother -_

The days slipped by like water through his-her fingers. _Their, the moon whispered._ Madara let them.

And then, one day, he woke up.

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